JAQR - Big Money Recap (Special Edition)

43 relatively hard questions

This recap contains dozens of questions based on one $2000 clue from each episode of Jeopardy! between 1/1/24 and 2/28/24. For example, if Jeopardy! originally had a clue like “This 18th century French writer may have derived his mononym from an anagram of a Latinized version of his surname, Arouet,” I might change it into a clue focusing on Voltaire’s literary works instead. The questions are divided into the following categories: Books, Geography, History, Miscellaneous, Music, and Pop Culture.

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BOOKS

1. What author wrote Black Sunday (terrorists plot an attack using a blimp at the Super Bowl), Red Dragon (Francis Dolarhyde is obsessed with a William Blake painting), and The Silence of the Lambs (features the “late, great” Hannibal Lecter)?

2. Who coined the term "cyberspace" in his story "Burning Chrome"? This man pioneered the sci-fi subgenre cyberpunk, which is exemplified by his 1984 novel Neuromancer (part of the Sprawl Trilogy with Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive).

3. A geologist at Miskatonic University named William Dyer recounts a disastrous expedition to Antarctica in what author's novella At the Mountains of Madness?

4. What forest is mentioned in Shakespeare’s Macbeth by an apparition whose prediction comes true when it comes to Dunsinane Hill in the form of branches used by soldiers as camouflage? This forest also titles a 2023 Eleanor Catton novel.

5. Reverend John Ames chronicles his ancestors in a series of letters addressed to his son in what novel by Marilynne Robinson (pictured below) that is named for a fictional Iowa town?

1. ***THOMAS HARRIS***

2. ***WILLIAM GIBSON***

3. ***H. P. LOVECRAFT***

4. ***BIRNAM WOOD***

5. ***GILEAD***

GEOGRAPHY

1. Located west of the Antarctic Peninsula, what sea is named for a 19th-century British explorer who also names a type of seal? Ernest Shackleton's ship Endurance sank in this sea in 1912 (and was re-discovered in 2022).

2. Possibly named for a figure from myth who was turned into a white cow by Zeus, what sea contains the islands of Corfu and Ithaca? This sea is between southern Italy and Greece and is connected by the Strait of Otranto to the Adriatic Sea.

3. The Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque is located in what capital of Oman, which shares its name with a variety of grape?

4. What ~200-mile-long river rises in the Blue Ridge Mountains, flows past Fredericksburg (site of an 1862 battle), and empties into the Chesapeake Bay?

5. A golden goshawk and nine stars (symbolizing nine islands) appear on the flag (pictured below) of what archipelago whose executive capital is Ponta Delgada?

1. ***WEDDELL SEA***

2. ***IONIAN SEA***

3. ***MUSCAT***

4. ***RAPPAHANNOCK RIVER***

5. ***AZORES***

HISTORY

1. Peter IV (AKA Peter the Ceremonious) was the ruler of what Spanish kingdom from 1336-1387 and battled Peter of Castile in the War of the Two Peters?

2. Also known as LZ-127, what airship with a two-word name was often operated by Hugo Eckener? Named for a German count, it had its first flight eight years before the Hindenburg and made an around the world flight in 1929.

3. Deb Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe, is the current secretary of what Cabinet department? It includes the Bureau of Indian Affairs and is sometimes known as the “Department of Everything Else”?

4. The astronauts Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders observed an Earthrise during what December 1968 lunar mission?

5. Played by Colman Domingo in a 2023 biopic (pictured below), what civil-rights activist organized 1963’s March on Washington? He often had to advise other civil rights leaders (e.g. MLK) from behind the scenes due to being gay.